


On Solid Ground

by poeticname



Category: Kamen Rider Build
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 02:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15939587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poeticname/pseuds/poeticname
Summary: The evening after their final battle, Sento and Banjou have a talk about the future.





	On Solid Ground

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I wrote this directly after watching the finale but. Sometimes you write things on paper and take a while to get the energy to type it up and that's just how it is. Anyways, thanks for the wild ride Build! I enjoyed myself immensely.

At the end of their first day in the new world, Sento and Banjou have a single thousand yen bill and a handful of coins in their collective pockets. More than enough for breakfast if they keep it cheap, but little enough that they won’t have time to do anything other than try to earn their keep tomorrow.

Banjou is unconcerned, of course, at least while they’re eating dinner. They’ve sat down at a picnic table in a park a fair distance from the one where they spent the afternoon, betting strangers that they couldn’t beat Banjou in an arm wrestle until they got enough cash for grocery store bento boxes, and Banjou is quite enjoying his. He's eating far too quickly to be chewing properly and humming appreciatively every few bites. Sento had done the same when they ate lunch, two big bowls of ramen they’d indulged in to celebrate, but he isn’t the biggest fan of his food now, opting to pick at it as he zones out.

The sky was only starting to be orange when they sat down to eat, but now it’s a full sunset and Sento can’t help but start to think about what the next day’s going to be. It’s a wonderful realm of possibility, sure, but it’s also a reality where where they don’t have much money on hand and every time Sento runs the math of it through his head, something he’s done more than a few times since he’s realized the problem, the result sounds completely dismal.

“This is the worst,” Sento announces, drawing Banjou’s attention immediately.

Banjou visibly swallows before talking, “If you don’t want it, I’ll eat it.”

“Not the food,” Sento picks up a bite of rice to stress that he’s not done. “This whole money thing. Somebody else always handled it at Nascita and Katsuragi never gave me our memories past high school so if I learned money skills, they’re all gone now. I have a rough idea of how much we’ll need to eat thanks to today, but anything beyond that is a mystery to me.”

“You’re a genius, aren’t you? You’ll figure it out.”

Sento puts down his chopsticks because he still isn’t all that keen on eating, “I’m a genius physicist though, not a genius financial advisor. I suppose I could learn, but…”

He trails off there because the only reason he can think of is that he doesn’t have the time, and he’s already realized that isn’t true anymore.

Banjou stares at Sento, absent-mindedly stuffing another slice of cold tonkatsu into his mouth as he waits for Sento to finish his sentence.

Sento, for his part, can’t get over the novelty of having time to think. If he can’t figure out their financial issues they’ll be uncomfortable for a while, and maybe have some other problems, but ultimately, there’s no time limit. They’re not in a hurry. Nothing terrible will happen to the world at large if he can’t figure this out before tomorrow.

He’s not sure that he can remember the last time that was true. He has some playful and pressure-less childhood memories, but they are so distant that they don’t feel real and even in Katsuragi’s marginally more clear high school memories there was the distinct feeling that he couldn’t slow down, that the return of his father and the fate of the world depended on him learning as much as he could in as short a time as possible. 

The memories where Katsuragi realized that he truly did have a role in the fate of the world are missing, of course, but Sento has more than enough time as himself to make up for it. From his first day as Build onwards, even when he did have time for himself some part of his mind was still processing the mystery of the hour, still wondering how he was going to save the world and picturing the consequences if he didn’t.

That he doesn’t have to do that anymore is a revelation unto itself.

Banjou’s still staring at Sento, waiting for an answer as Sento processes. 

“You okay in there?”

Now Sento’s thinking about how maybe mid-sentence wasn’t the best time to try and digest this revelation and how he should maybe respond, but he doesn’t know what to say that will keep Banjou from worrying.

Banjou swallows again, puts down his chopsticks, and reaches across the table to put his hand on one of Sento’s. Sento almost jerks away out of habit, the old “there’s too much happening for us to do this” thought springing to mind like clockwork, but that isn’t true anymore either. They have time to figure it out.

He lets Banjou squeeze his hand, and decides it will be better to just respond.

“I’m here, sorry, just got a little carried away while thinking.”

“No problem,” Banjou’s voice sounds suspiciously as if he still has some food in his mouth, but Sento can’t bring himself to check. “I just like it better when you’re talking.”

Sento looks up at that and yes, Banjou is definitely chewing, “Do you really?”

“When you’re not calling me an idiot, yeah.”

Banjou continues to chew, thoughtlessly picking up another bite of rice with his bad hand so he can continue to hold Sento’s. It doesn’t make for a flattering picture at all but he’s being so utterly Banjou, so kind and so dumb, that Sento aches with fondness for him. He wants to say something about it, but in spite of himself he’s still hesitant and they’re still eating dinner and maybe now that he can, Sento should take things one step at a time.

So for now, Sento pulls his hand back and smiles. 

“Too bad you’re an idiot then, so I can’t stop.”

Banjou snorts but does smile back, “I wouldn't expect you to at this point.”

Sento hums an affirmation, then picks up another bite of food for himself. It’s almost tempting to give up on it now and start running mental calculations again, another old habit, but it wouldn’t be fair to Banjou and his tired arms if they went through all that work in the afternoon for Sento not to eat.

They eat in silence for a moment following that, Sento focusing almost entirely on his food. Banjou finishes eating quickly, as expected, but he waits for Sento to also be done before he gets up to throw their trash away.

Sento trails behind him as Banjou takes too long to make sure everything’s going in the right bin. He's idly checking his phone/bike’s battery as he waits, trying to think of a place to find an outlet in case it runs out, when Banjou finally starts talking again.

“What were you thinking about, anyway? When you trailed off back there.”

Sento’s a little taken aback, he doesn’t usually expect that sort of question from Banjou, who tends to leave him to his thoughts with the assumption that he won’t understand, but then again maybe this is a first glimpse of Banjou when he’s allowed to slow down, allowed to take his time and realize Sento might not be thinking of world-shatteringly serious issues every time he pauses.

“Just the future,” Sento says, now stepping ahead so he can lead them to the road beside the park in case they decide it’s time to go, “the amount of time we have to ourselves now that there’s no Evolt.”

Banjou follows Sento without seeming to think about it, sticking his hands in his pockets and tilting his head up to look at the now almost completely dark sky, “We do have a lot of that, don’t we.”

“Is there anything in particular you want to do with it?”

Now it’s Banjou’s turn to be taken aback, though his surprise doesn’t last long. He looks at Sento and furrows his brow a little.

“I can’t think of anything right away…” he looks ahead, and then shrugs. “Whatever you want to do, I guess.”

Sento’s startled into a laugh at the sudden image he gets of Banjou in a lab coat, being unable to remember any formulas without at least four rounds of prompting. 

“You know, I don’t think you’re a complete idiot, but I do think you’d be hopeless at physics.”

“Not like that! You hadn’t even said you want to do science again until now.”

“That’s true,” Sento admits. He hadn’t really known it himself until he said it. There were too many other things to think about, from food to money to time.

Banjou starts again, still looking thoughtful, “What I mean by that was like…”

He trails off as they reach the sidewalk. Sento lets him think, knowing Banjou did the same for him earlier.

“You know…”

Judging by the red starting to show on Banjou’s ears Sento thinks he does actually know, but he wants to hear how Banjou’s going to put it.

“I want to be with you, and I want to be a hero if possible.”

Banjou’s facing ahead, away from Sento, as if he’s staring at the sidewalk ahead of them, but his eyes are clearly looking at Sento, trying to gauge his reaction.

Knowing that Banjou’s looking, Sento hopes that how unreasonably happy he is with Banjou’s words isn’t showing too much. It seems that Banjou’s not quite ready to say their feelings outright either, given he paired that confession with something else entirely, but that’s fine with Sento. After all, he happily reminds himself, they can take as long as they want to sort things out.

For now, just looking at Banjou trying to keep his cool while blushing is more than enough of a joy.

“Those are both doable,” Sento says, trying to keep it casual though he can’t be sure that his face hasn’t also turned red.

Banjou outright grins, finally looking him in the eye again. Sento feels painfully fond of him for about the hundredth time today.

“Then I’m all set for plans. What about you?”

That throws Sento a little off-balance from his happiness, as his brain thinks of a dozen things at once and none of them feel attainable, “Truthfully I’m not sure. I feel like if I stop to think about it, I’ll come up with too many ideas to do even a quarter of them, especially given that we’re living meal-to-meal for now.”

“We’re talking big picture here, so tell me what you’d do if money wasn’t a problem” Banjou’s still smiling, though it’s a little more subdued now that Sento’s more calm, “and leave out any science-y goals so I can get what you’re saying.”

Sento almost tells Banjou that it’s actually impossible for him to have science goals in a universe where he hasn’t even compared what’s possible here to what’s possible in their original world yet, but doesn’t bother. Even without any scientific ambitions he has too many plans, from semi-forgotten childhood dreams to the self-discovery he wanted to do when fully amnesiac to a desire he’s realized right now to work out exactly what he wants to say to Banjou someday to the ever-present desire to help the world at large.

Night falls for real as the two of them leave the park behind. The street lights lining the road have already turned on and the flow of cars passing by is so slow that Sento could probably open the bike up without any problems and they could get going to where ever they're going next.

He wants to take this particular moment slowly, though.

“Your hair sprang up,” Banjou says into the near-silence. “A little bit ago, when I was talking.”

Knowing he means the semi-confession, Sento almost congratulates Banjou on being subtle but manages to hold back. He says thanks and smooths his hair back in place, trying to distill his list of goals into something as simple as Banjou’s.

After a couple of minutes, as they start to cross a bridge into an area of town with taller buildings, Sento realizes he’s probably overthinking and Banjou just wants him to talk.

“I want to sort out the problem where we don’t have ID first, because being on the run sucked.”

“Worse for me than you,” Banjou points out, mildly indignant, but Sento moves on.

“Second, I want access to an actual bed.”

“I like that one.”

Sento ignores him again, “Thirdly, I want a laboratory.”

“Is that it?”

Sento shakes his head, stopping and looking out on the concrete-constrained stream running under the bridge instead of looking anywhere near Banjou for his more emotional wishes.

“I want to get close with our friends again, find some way to help our new world, discover something new and amazing through my studies, find out what kind of non-science hobbies I might like, write our story down, see the parts of Japan I couldn’t because of the Skywall and stay by your side for all of it.”

Sento still can’t bring himself to look at Banjou when he’s done, even knowing that he feels more or less the same way about that last point, but he doesn’t really need to look because Banjou’s grabbed his hand again, properly holding it this time.

“That’s all doable too.”

Sento laughs, “You don’t have to make me feel better, I know it’s too much.”

“No way Sento,” now that Banjou’s said his name, Sento automatically turns to face him. “You saved a whole world, you can do anything.”

Sento abruptly realizes that after finishing his list he started tearing up, and that won’t do for their first night after their amazing feat at all.

He quickly rights his posture, moving enough that he actually knocks Banjou off-balance through their linked hands, bringing him a step closer.

“You’re right, modesty has never suited me and now that I have time I will surely reach even greater heights.”

Seeing that he’s been comforted, Banjou tries to take his hand back but Sento tightens his grip and grins at him.

“All with my beloved sidekick at my side, of course.”

For that, Banjou gives Sento an incredulous bark of laughter.

“This is the rest of my life, isn’t it.”

He sounds happy about that though. Feeling fond again, Sento bumps their shoulders together and follows Banjou’s gaze over the side of the bridge.

They stand there for a while, looking out over the water heading further into the city. Sento leans into Banjou more than he would have allowed himself in Touto and Banjou tightens his grip on Sento’s hand in response. The scene they’re looking at isn’t exactly pretty, it would probably look grimy under more light, but with the dark of night smoothing things out, the sounds of a peaceful city around them and bright exciting lights in the distance, it feels more than nice enough.

Really, no matter what they were seeing Sento would be happy to look at it with his newfound certainty that no matter where they end up from now on, he and Banjou can take their time to enjoy life together.


End file.
